SOBRE ESTE EPISÓDIO
In the 1960s, schoolchildren practiced for the end of the world by hiding under their desks. Sixty years later, the desks are virtual, and the apocalypse has company.
In this solo episode, host Thomas Schueneman reads a short essay from Thinking Out Loud, his column in the Global Warming Is Real newsletter. After nearly twenty years of warning about climate change, he watches artificial intelligence arrive to steal climate’s existential thunder. Then he takes the joke seriously enough to follow it somewhere useful, to the question beneath both crises: is our wisdom keeping pace with the complexity we keep building?
In this episode
- Duck and cover, mutually assured destruction, and a magazine that asked: "What, me worry?"
- The virtual desks we hide under today, or mutually assured distraction
- AGI and AGW: two acronyms, two threats of our own making
- The irony of AI as both a burden on the climate and a hoped-for fix
- Finding the humor in hilarious times, and why it helps
- Why complexity does not imply resilience or wisdom
- The question that matters more than any forecast: what kind of world do we want?
Hope, Tom suggests, begins when we stop fooling ourselves, and that cuts both ways. The danger is real. So is our capacity to answer it. The way out isn't a better hiding place. It's climbing out from under the desk, long enough to imagine something better.
Links
- Read the original essay and subscribe to the Global Warming Is Real newsletter: globalwarmingisreal.com https://globalwarmingisreal.com/2026/10/01/why-worry-climate-change-and-ai/
- Earthbound: https://www.earthboundpodcast.com
- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1801556711
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1oTiYPa10UY9pqWgSwwEnF
- Earthbound on Substack: https://planetwatch.substack.com
- Further reading: Energy and AI, International Energy Agency, 2025: https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai
- Related: Breaking the Chains: The Lust for Power vs. the Light of Energy: https://www.earthboundpodcast.com/breaking-the-chains-the-lust-for-power-vs-the-light-of-energy/
- Related solo essay: Climate and Peace | Lessons of Minneapolis: https://www.earthboundpodcast.com/climate-and-peace-lessons-of-minneapolis/
- Related solo essay: The Fourth Turning Meets the Ways of the Duck: https://www.earthboundpodcast.com/the-fourth-turning-meets-the-ways-of-the-duck-responding-with-calm-in-a-chaotic-world/
- Support the show: https://www.earthboundpodcast.com/support/
